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Understanding the Sun and Solar System Plasmas Future Directions in Solar and Space Physics (2004) / Chapter Skim
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An Astrophysical Laboratory in Our Own Backyard
Pages 30-31

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From page 30...
... The detailed knowledge that scientists obtain from helioseismic studies of the Sun's A N A S T R O P H Y S I C A L interior, high-resolution imaging of the solar surface and corona, and in situ measurements of the solar wind L A B O R A T O R Y I N O U R and the IMF is being applied to the study of other O W N B A C K Y A R D magnetically active stars, with their hot x-ray-emitting Magnetic reconnection may be responsible for accelerating cosmic rays in the lobes of giant radio galaxies such as NVSS 2146+82, a hypothesis supported by theoretical studies of reconnection in solar system plasmas.
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From page 31...
... By uncovering the mechanisms by which the Sun's corona is heat- IN ASTROPHYSICAL PLASMAS ed and the solar wind is accelerated, Solar Probe will yield The study of solar system plasmas has insights into coronal heating and stellar wind acceleration at made substantial contributions to our other low-mass main-sequence stars in our galaxy. understanding of such universal plasma Earth's magnetosphere affords a unique laboratory for processes as magnetic reconnection, magthe investigation of magnetic reconnection, a process that has netohydrodynamic turbulence, energetic been invoked to explain a number of astrophysical phenomena, particle acceleration, and the formation of from solar flares and CMEs, to accretion disk flares, to the collisionless shocks.
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Key Terms

  • solar wind


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